Goodwill shoppers and donors help students earn diplomas, fresh start
Shawn Smith got a fulltime helper’s job with an electrical contractor in Philadelphia and is continuing his education at Delaware County Community College.
Lauren Pelley went to work at a mental health center in Cherry Hill and is set to begin training to become a Certified Recovery Support Practitioner. As for Tamico Flack? “I wrote a self-help book,” she said. “The title is ‘Becoming the Real You.’”
Each of these recent graduates of the Helms Academy didn’t finish at their respective high schools in Philadelphia; Buena, New Jersey; and Trenton. None of them had sat in a classroom in years before enrolling in the innovative, tuition-free program offered by Goodwill Industries of Southern New Jersey & Philadelphia, where they were able to earn a diploma – and reset the course of their lives.
Named for Goodwill founder Edgar James Helms, the academy enma ables people whose job or life prospects have been stymied by the lack of a high school diploma to not only earn one, but also earn credits from community colleges in Philadelphia and South Jersey at the same time. Such credits can be applied toward completion of four-year degree programs at Rutgers, Drexel and Temple universities.
“When you work oneon-one with students like I do, and you help them achieve goals or remove road blocks to their goals, their successes are very moving to witness,” said Charles “Jeff” Jeffers, adult education coordinator for the Helms Academy.
More than 100 students have graduated since Goodwill of Southern New Jersey & Philadelphia launched the program in 2013. The Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Goodwill has established its own Helms Academy, and a few others have developed similar programs.
“People think of us as a place you donate to or shop,” said Mark Boyd, president and CEO of the Goodwill Southern New Jersey-Philadelphia. “People have a sense we do good, but they don’t know it is. This is what we do. This is why you donate or shop at Goodwill. You’re helping your neighbor earn their diploma.”
Boyd, who served as New Jersey’s commissioner of labor under former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and has “always had a passion for secondchance education,” said the Helms Academy helps to fill a void. Adult alternative or “night school” programs in public school districts have largely been eliminated for budgetary reasons, and remedial or other classes offered by private organizations or for-profit schools can be unaffordable to many.
“With the Helms Academy, you can earn a diploma and be halfway to your associate’s degree, and you have not spent a dime, or burned up your Pell [federal student aid] Grant,” said Boyd.
“We don’t have many options like the Helms Academy in the city,” said David E. Thomas, associate vice president for strategic initiatives at Community College of Philadelphia.
CCP is partnered with Drexel’s Dornsife School
Public Health, which hosts Helms Academy classes and provides tutors and other services to help students “brush up and master the content” of subjects required for high school completion and community college matriculation, said Thomas.
Classes, which have long been available online, have continued in a hybrid of in-person and remote learning since the pandemic struck.
Smith, who’s 38 and the father of a young daughter, said he dropped out of West Philadelphia High School in 2000, not long before he would have graduated. He attributes his decision to youthful rebellion and family comsomething
plications; ultimately, he ended up homeless but was assisted by Covenant House. Later, he worked as a security guard for 10 years.
“I was hitting the ceiling. I couldn’t go any higher financially,” he said. “I knew I had to do better for my kid and myself.”
Another agency referred him to Helms Academy. Smith was nervous about being back in a classroom, wondering if he was “going to remember those damn fractions,” but quickly became comfortable due to the close relationship between staff and students.
He was able to complete the work to earn his diploof
quickly. “It has your name on it,” he said. “It was exhilarating.”
Diploma in hand, Smith decided to enter a 10week electrician training program offered at the Academy of Industrial Arts in Southwest Philly. He got hired as a helper by an electrical contractor and is working full-time while pursuing classes to help meet professional certification requirements at Delaware County Community College.
“You gotta go back, right that wrong, and fix what you broke,” Smith said. “Unless you hit the lottery or get a big inheritance, there’s no way to do that without education.”